Left

by Tamar Ossowski

  Small red pills.

  Wedged between a box of Band-Aids and a bottle of purple cough syrup in the medicine cabinet. I shook the bottle, listened to the rattling noise they made, and then swallowed three. I waited for the alarms to go off, the sirens to blare, something warning the world that I was about to cross the line. Nothing. So I shook a few more into my hand and that’s when I noticed him.

  Leaning in the doorway.

  The bottle slipped onto the ground and the little pills scattered across the tile floor like candies.

  “Headache,” I whispered.

  The word bounced off the mirror because I didn’t want to turn and see his face. I didn’t ask what he was doing there, why he was in my house, watching me swallow too many Extra Strength Tylenols, because then I would need to explain and I figured if I didn’t ask him, he wouldn’t ask me.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  I wasn’t sure which one of us said it first.

  I followed him outside and, even though the weather was warmer than it had been in months, he zipped his jacket. We walked into town and then towards the building he had taken me to months ago. We climbed onto the roof and I could hear the traffic below, cars honking, people talking. He took out his sketchbook and started to draw and I waited patiently.

  A little while later, he walked to a corner of the rooftop and turned away from me to pee. It pooled and then trickled down and reminded me of a misshapen cloud.

  “You saw my mom.”

  Everything inside screamed at me to lie. “Yeah.”

  He dug inside his pocket and stuck a piece of gum in his mouth, throwing the crumpled wrapper onto the ground. He chewed, making it crack like gunshots, and then he was next to me. Before I could stop him, his hand was behind my neck and he was pushing his face into mine, his lips into mine, and then finally, slipped his gum into my mouth. Cinnamon saliva dripped down my chin and I wiped it with the back of my sleeve.

  “Here.” He shoved an envelope into my hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “Take it.”

  I didn’t have anywhere to put it so I held it in my hand.

  “Look at it after you’re gone.”

  Franny

  The ball inside me was bouncing.

  I did two crossword puzzles and one word search and then turned on the television and matched my breathing to the click of the channels, but nothing made it better. The next thing I knew, Leah handed me my bathing suit and I put it on underneath my clothes.

  When we got to the pool, there was a man swimming laps. I sat on the bleachers, counting each time his arm sliced into the water. When I looked back up, Leah had taken off her shirt and was standing beside me in a shiny black bathing suit.

  “Let’s go in together.”

  I nodded, not really sure how I felt about the change in routine. Leah always sat and watched me. The ball inside me bounced harder, but I vowed not to disappoint her again, so I stripped off my clothes and stuffed them inside my bag.

  She tiptoed around the puddles, reminding me of a ballet dancer.

  “C’mon.” She took my hand and led me to the edge of the water. We sat together, the skin of our thighs touching, holding hands like little kids.

  We slid in above our waists. She braced herself on my arms and arched her back so that the water lapped around her face. The tip of her nose disappeared every few seconds and then popped back up. When she straightened, wisps of hair streamed around her shoulders like yellow ribbons.

  “Your turn,” she said, reaching out her forearms for me to hold.

  I shook my head.

  “Yes, Franny. Just try.”

  So I gripped myself tightly to her and arched my head back, feeling the pulse of the water vibrate through me. I was floating, but grounded at the same time. When I came back up, she started to swim and I followed her, synchronizing myself so that I rose when she fell. I liked looking at her when she didn’t know that I was.

  I’m not sure how long we swam like that, side by side, like twins.

  Finally, she stopped. We bobbed up and down in the water, spreading out our arms and legs to keep afloat.

  “Why didn’t you tell me how much fun I was missing?” she asked.

  For a second, I thought she was angry with me for keeping something else from her, but she was smiling, so I smiled back. She shimmied her fingertips back and forth, making tiny little bubbles in the water, and then sunk down to her ears, blowing them in my direction. It felt funny seeing her wet. The only other person I had ever seen that way was Matilda when we were little and took baths together. Leah lifted herself up and floated on her back. Her body, at the mercy of each rippled wave, lay limp. I briefly worried that she had stopped breathing, but then her eyes opened and she was back with me, smiling.

  The buzzing inside got louder, so I turned away from her to swim on my own—back and forth across the pool, hoping that each time I sank underneath, I would reemerge cleansed. I went deeper until I felt the rough bottom scrape my chin. When I came up for air, I saw that she had gotten out and was sitting on the bleacher next to the man I had watched swimming laps. She smiled at me and waved and I saw him turn and look at her. I dove down again, wanting to make the whirling inside my head stop.

  But it didn’t.

  Instead, it got sharper. Clearer. Pushing me down farther. When I closed my eyes, I saw the pretty little girls riding pretty pink bicycles from the park and then my chin started to throb and somewhere in the swirl and crash of the water, I understood that I could fight and protest as much as I wanted. I could hold my breath, stay underwater, and pretend that it wasn’t there, but none of it would make a bit of difference. Because, in the end, I never had any other choice.

  I felt like a werewolf during the full moon. The pool didn’t help, so when we got home, Leah set up the Scrabble board. The fact that the letters wouldn’t sit straight on the board provoked me. I tried to nudge them into place, but my fingers felt big and puffy and after a while I just gave up.

  I didn’t want to be like this.

  “It’s the letters,” I whispered, but even the sound of my own voice felt loud and sharp inside my head.

  “Hmm?” she asked in a sweet, absentminded way that on a normal day would have made me smile. But not today, because something was inside that left no room for anything else. Something big and bouncy and wild.

  “It’s the letters. You need to make them line up the right way.”

  She looked down at the board and then back up at me. I don’t think she understood how important her task was.

  “Please!” I yelled. “Please, Leah.”

  “Okay, Franny, I will.” She bent over the board, lining them up the best she could.

  “No! Not like that. Not that way!” I covered my eyes as if the sight was too much to bear. “You’re doing it all wrong.” I could feel it growing inside of me, getting bigger, bouncing harder.

  “This way?” She arranged the letters so that they ran across the board diagonally.

  “No!” I shouted, because at that moment, all I wanted was for it to be right. For all of it to be right. “No. That’s not what I mean!”

  And then it came, like those rainstorms that happen on sunny days, with no warning and no explanation. I covered my mouth with my hands as sounds I didn’t recognize slipped from between my fingers. The thing inside me bounced harder and all I could do was rock myself on the couch and hope that soon it would end.

  I knew Leah was still in the room, but she didn’t come close and I was grateful because I didn’t want to be touched. I wanted to crawl deep inside myself and close my eyes until it passed. More rocking, more yelling, more tears . . . and then just rocking. Slowly, back and forth, until I felt her arms around me, moving with me.

  I fell into her and, as she hummed in my ear, I knew it was almost over. I clung to her as though she had suddenly announced she was leaving. I buried my face in her hair, and she held me in her arms, the rocking slowing to the pace
of our beating hearts.

  After a few minutes she shifted, kissed the top of my head, and whispered, “It’s okay, Franny.”

  The clock chimed, reminding us that something had passed. I laid my head in her lap and curled my body, because even in the quiet, in the calm, I could still feel it. Not as big as before, but small like a pebble in my shoe.

  “What is it, Franny?”

  I couldn’t give it words.

  “You are so brave.” She held me tightly, like if she didn’t, I might disappear, and I shook my head. She pushed me away so that she could see my face. “I know how hard things are for you. And still you never give up. I wish I was as strong as you.”

  “No.”

  “The thing inside that makes things hard is also the thing that gives you gifts. Helps you see things that no one else can see. Makes you special.”

  “I don’t want to be. . . . Special.”

  “But you are.”

  “You mean because of the spelling?”

  “No, not because of the spelling. Your letters form words and that gives you comfort, but someday you won’t need the letters. Someday all you will need is your voice.”

  I wanted to understand what she was telling me. I closed my eyes and tried to listen, but all I heard was a rumble that became steady like a heartbeat, rhythmic and loud and present.

  A few days later, Evelyn and I had resumed our habit of meeting at the library. I tried to focus on the page I was reading. Evelyn grabbed a handful of hair and twirled it around her finger. For a second I forgot that she was waiting and then I remembered.

  She was waiting for me.

  We hadn’t talked very much after the day I ran away. Something about me had changed, but I couldn’t find the words to explain so instead I said nothing.

  Miss Betty wasn’t there today. In her seat sat a skinny blonde woman who kept shushing a pair of teenagers at the table next to us. Each time she hissed, I jumped.

  “What’s wrong?” Evelyn repeated.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Looking at the lovebirds?”

  “What?”

  “Their feet have been touching since they sat down and the girl keeps giggling.”

  The skinny librarian let out another hiss, which startled me so much that the book I was holding flew out of my hand and onto the floor.

  As everyone turned to look, I felt myself getting hot and Evelyn leaned over to pick it up. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” I stared down into my lap.

  “Do you think everyone sees colors the same?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Take red, for example. Do you think that what your brain tells you is red is the same as what I see?

  “I don’t know.” Not once had it occurred to me that the color red might look different to someone else.

  She dug through her bag until she found her pencil case. She took out a red magic marker and drew a square. “What do you see?”

  “A red square.”

  “I know that, Franny.” She sighed, sounding frighteningly like the hissing librarian. “I mean describe red so that I can know if it’s the same thing I see.”

  “I don’t know how to describe red.”

  “Is it bright?”

  I nodded.

  “Is it hot, loud, mad? Does it make you feel like jumping?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then it must be the same thing I see.” She opened her book and went back to twirling her hair. The girl behind us was talking to the boy in hushed tones. I felt warm, electric sparkles and then fiery tingles up and down my back.

  Red.

  I took her notepad and drew a dark black line inside the red square she had made. I filled it in; it took a long time because I forced myself to stay within the lines. Then, even though I was finished, I didn’t put down the pen.

  Instead, I drew thick black lines that covered up her red, turning the sides a dark sticky brown and making it look ugly and misshapen. I colored even harder, taking the lines outside the confines of her square, wild random crazy lines that suddenly took on a life of their own, moving across the page with a confident strength that startled me so much that I stopped and pushed myself away from the table. Afterward, I sat quietly with my hands in my lap because I was not sure what they might do next.

  I was relieved when Evelyn finally announced she needed to use the bathroom. We wound our way to a door with a big W painted on the outside.

  Once inside, we were alone.

  My last visit to a public bathroom was at the movie theater. I tried to block the memory by squinting my eyes and Evelyn looked at me funny but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to be quiet inside.

  Evelyn hoisted herself up onto the counter, which was made of shiny stainless steel. “These sinks remind me of being on an airplane. Have you ever been in one?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s pretty cool. My favorite is the takeoff. Maybe we could go together someday.”

  The door swung open and a woman walked inside. She eyed the two of us and then chose the stall furthest away.

  “Imagine if we could fly anyplace we wanted.” Her nose started to twitch.

  “Like Saturn.”

  “Why Saturn?” she asked.

  The woman finished and I braced myself for the flush, covering my ears. She washed her hands in the sink, but the drain was clogged and the metal basin filled with gray soapy water. She used the last paper towel to wipe her hands and, when she walked out, the door whined behind her.

  “Why Saturn?” she repeated.

  I shrugged, watching the water line in the sink descend. “I like the rings.”

  She nodded as if what I said made sense.

  “I have to go.” She hopped off the counter and headed towards a stall.

  I walked into the stall next to hers because I didn’t want to be alone. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. I heard the angry splashing sound her pee made when it hit the water and then I heard the flush, but this time I didn’t cover my ears. I opened my door seconds after she opened hers and picked the sink with the clogged drain because there was something calming about the way the water collected. The paper towel dispenser was empty, so we used the hand blower on the wall. Evelyn tapped it with her elbow and the room filled with a loud, steady humming noise. We both put our hands underneath, rubbing them softly in the warm, dry air. The room vibrated with sound, but this time it didn’t frighten me.

  As my hands, still tingling with their newfound courage, sat beneath hers, I closed my eyes and for the longest second in my life, I pretended I was brave.

  That evening, I decided to push my courage even further. “I want to know.”

  Leah sat up on the couch. She put her hand over her knuckle and rubbed the rough, callused skin. “What is it that you want to know?”

  “I want to know about him. The one that hurt you.”

  She was quiet. She looked down at the floor, her eyes blinking quickly, almost as if she was looking through her memories, trying to pick which ones to share. “What is it that you want to know?”

  “Why did you love him?”

  She pushed herself farther back into the cushion and she smiled as she spoke. “He was young and funny and the art he made was nothing like I had ever seen.”

  I could feel the letters poking at me, so I pursed my lips. “Is that why you loved him?”

  “I loved him because I could run away into his paintings. I could disappear inside of them.”

  My heart was pounding in my head, making my thoughts jumble together. I needed to know why she loved him, because I needed to know why she loved me. And I needed to know what he did to break her.

  “I should have listened to Therese.”

  Lately she had gotten into the habit of referring to my mother by name.

  “Did she know him? My mother?”

  Leah nodded. “Therese knows things about people. I don’t know how, but she does.”

  “You wi
sh you had never met him.”

  “No, Franny, I am grateful I met him. He gave me something that I will never be able to repay him for.” She brought her teacup to her lips, softly blowing across the surface.

  I laid my head down in her lap because I wanted to feel her hand on me. Like we were connected. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling myself in even more.

  “One day I will tell you about the people who teach you to find your courage and the ones who help you become the person you were always supposed to be.”

  I nodded, but it didn’t really matter because all I knew was that she was going to tell me these things someday, which meant that there were more days to come.

  Therese

  She liked sleeping with the window open. The breeze blew in across a box of tissues, making the one on top wave like a white flag. The cool air was not enough to soothe her, so she got up and walked to the bathroom. She wrapped her arms around her waist, remembering what it felt like when Matilda was growing inside and how excited it made Leah to feel her kick. She thought about how much Leah wanted a child, yet how clearly frightened she was to care for one. It was as though she didn’t trust herself. Therese’s thoughts always led to Leah, like a stray thread unraveling in her mind.

  She turned off the light and sat at the edge of the bed. Tim was snoring just enough to remind her that he was there. Kicking her foot through a heap of his clothes, she watched a shoe fly through the air. She circled her toe in the sheets and then pushed herself up against his back. Hoping he would wake, she nudged him a few times, and when he didn’t, she pinched the skin on the back of his arm. He swatted at her so she pinched harder.

  “What?” he muttered.

  “Wake up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” Because the images in her mind were spinning so furiously she thought her head may explode.

  He rolled over so that he was facing her, but then fell back to sleep. Each time air whistled past, his nostrils flared. She covered one up and listened as he sputtered, sending little balls of spit onto her cheek. She poked him in his chest, and when he didn’t respond she poked again. It was like knocking at an abandoned house.